Surgical tourniquets are widely used during surgical procedures to occlude the flow of blood in a portion of a limb during the procedure, particularly in connection with arthroscopic procedures relating to the hand, wrist, elbow, foot, and knee, in which the existence of a bloodless field in the appropriate portion of a patient's limb may be required. Surgical tourniquets are similarly useful in other procedures in which the creation of a bloodless field is desirable, including nerve grafting and harvesting. It is particularly important in certain procedures that a surgeon be able to shut off the flow of blood extremely quickly during the procedure. Yet prior art surgical tourniquets typically require seven seconds or more for inflation before blood flow may be occluded. It is equally important that pressure be evenly maintained by a surgical tourniquet despite the manipulation by a surgeon of the limb in which blood flow is being occluded by the tourniquet, which manipulation tends to affect the pressure within the tourniquet. It is also important that the surgical tourniquet be easy to use and physically stable so that the surgeon may focus his attention on other aspects of the surgery.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a dual reservoir equilibrium surgical tourniquet allowing swift inflation and deflation.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a surgical tourniquet that can be inflated in less than five seconds.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a method for detecting air leaks in a surgical tourniquet.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a surgical tourniquet that from an inflated state may be deflated, reset to default values, adjusted to new values, or turned off.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a surgical tourniquet with a housing fitting around a pole and with a center of gravity within the pole.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a surgical tourniquet with an easy to use graphical user interface.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a method for detecting stuck valves in a surgical tourniquet.